By Robert Kittle
Supporters of medical marijuana in South Carolina rallied at the Statehouse Wednesday, telling their stories of how they’ve already been helped by the plant and its extracts. A bill now in the House and a similar one in the Senate would make medical marijuana legal in the state for a number of conditions, including cancer, glaucoma, seizures, autism, and post traumatic stress disorder.
April Pace came to the rally from Greenville with her 18-year-old daughter Dixie, who has epilepsy. “She’s been having uncontrolled seizures for 12 years, and almost 13 now, and each year they just progressively get worse,” April says of Dixie, who had up to 50 seizures a day. At the start of this year, though, she started taking CBD oil, an extract from the marijuana plant that has none of its mind-altering chemical. Lawmakers passed a law last year making CBD oil legal in the state for people with epilepsy.
“After we started the oil, she’s went down from 50-plus,” seizures April says. “Most days we average six to eight seizures a day. We’ve actually had 12 days this year with no seizures.”
Dixie says, “I feel a whole lot better. My speech is a whole lot clearer. I’m not having as many seizures.”
The problem is that even though it’s now legal for her and others with epilepsy to have CBD oil, it’s not made in the state. The bills in the House and Senate would set up growing the plants, harvesting them, and extracting the CBD oil.
Two military veterans who spoke at the rally said they both attempted suicide because of PTSD, and both have been saved by medical marijuana.
The bills face opposition from the State Law Enforcement Division and the SC Medical Association. SLED says if medical marijuana can be grown and sold in the state, it’s easy for people to grow illegal plants and disguise them as medical ones. The SC Medical Association worries doctors will be harassed by people trying to get prescriptions for the drug even though they don’t qualify.
Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, sponsor of the Senate bill, says, “I understand their argument and I respect their concerns, and we’re going to address them. We’re going to make sure that the most stringent protocols are in place to track this so that there’s absolute transparency in regard to what it’s being used for, so that the concerns they have about it being diverted for recreational use can be addressed, and I know we can do that.”
He says there’s technology that can track the cannabis plants from growth to harvest.
The medical marijuana bills will not pass this year, since lawmakers adjourn June 4th and the bills have not passed the full House or Senate, but Davis is hopeful they’ll pass next year.